Tuesday, March 10, 2015

When Politeness Fails

It
wouldn’t be entirely off track to conclude we humans are a rude bunch of shut your mouths.

Go to any career-related website
or job board, and you’ll read complaint after complaint about rude recruiters
and heartless HR managers.

And each year, incivility in the workplace, including workplace bullying, costs employers
millions, if not billions, in increased unscheduled absences, increased use of
medical plans, lost productivity, and lawsuits. It's estimated that nearly 98% of employees have experienced bad behavior
at work.

How ironic then, when politeness
actually contributes to a less civil society.

When
Nice Isn’t Good

I like nice. Nice people make the job more pleasant and less
stressful.

Of course, that’s when people
aren't just pretending to be nice.

Because when nice is the thinnest of veneers attached with cheap glue
to the ugliness underneath, nice isn’t very nice at all. More than that,
genuinely decent folks should think long and hard about playing the games these
so-called nice folks demand.

The Nice Narcissist

I used to work with a manipulative
and devious individual I’ll call Andrea (not her real name).

Exhibiting the signs of a malignant narcissist, Andrea was a frequent and practiced liar whose
one mission in life was to get her way—and
she didn’t care who got hurt or what rules she broke in the process.

While Andrea's true personality was visible to anyone with eyes to see, she wrapped it in a cloak of faux politeness.

Andrea had learned long ago that
if she gave the appearance of decency, no one would challenge her evil acts. And
mostly she was right. In the time I worked with her, it was rare for anyone to
confront Andrea’s bold-faced lies, hypocritical statements, or nasty ways of
using and abusing people.

The Problem with Politeness

It’s been said that it takes two
to lie: One to lie and one to listen. Unfortunately, our workplaces are filled to
abundance with those eager to lie and those only too willing to listen.

Most of us listen because it’s
the courteous and socially accepted option. We’re taught that it’s not okay to tell
someone in authority she’s lying, especially at work. In fact, never at work.

And this is a huge problem,
because liars in the workplace generally aren’t content to spin tall tales for
amusement value alone (although some are sick enough that lying and the sense
of control it brings is pleasurable).

Instead, these deceivers want us
to use their lies as the foundation for our action. They want us to swallow
their bull and then do something we wouldn’t do if they’d simply leave us the
hell alone.

Other times the objective is to
exercise dominance—I will tell you a blatant lie, and I will force you to
acknowledge it as truth.

Either way, it’s a violation of
another’s free will, and it’s wrong.

It’s also offensive, because
it’s a perversion of social mores created to protect the common good, not
defile it.

A Preferred Way of Relating Is Just
That: A Preference

It’s exasperating to what
lengths some folks will go to excuse the bad behaviors of others.

“That’s just the way she is,”
they say. “Nobody’s perfect,” they say. “It’s none of my business,” they say.

Like I said, exasperating. No
one’s asking for perfection, just don't be a lying skeeze. But if you want to be a lying skeeze, then
leave me out of it, please. Don’t expect me to validate your view of the world,
don’t expect me to participate in your immoral dealings, don’t expect me to
listen to your BS with an enthralled expression on my face—just don’t.

And as for the “that’s just the
way he/she is” school of thought, well, I think that’s bunk. Even the
personality disordered choose how they will interact with others. In the case
of malignant narcissists, they manipulate, deceive, gossip, lie, backstab, and
betray because it suits their purposes. Just like I’ll tell them to go to hell because it suits my purposes.

When Narcissism Becomes Normal,
We’re All In Trouble

Dave Orisson, a pastor who
writes about narcissism without sparing the church, explains it this way
(highlights mine):

“… a cursory glance at our
culture would be enough to conclude that narcissism is becoming not only
normal, but desirable.

Perhaps the qualities of
narcissism—self-promotion, fantasy superiority, need for admiration,
exploitation of others, sense of entitlement, lack of empathy or desire to care
about the feelings of others—are so much a part of the normal lives of young
people that no one especially thinks of them as problematic. When even those who are not narcissists
accept narcissistic behavior as normal, the difficulty of dealing with those
who hurt and use others may become insurmountable.”

Bucking the Trend

There are many valid reasons to keep your opinion of your coworkers’ veracity
to yourself, that’s a fact. Still, allowing the people of the lie to define the world for the rest of us is a very
bad idea.

“In relationships, especially,
we can call out the behavior. We still claim to hold positive values in relationships.
So we have the right and responsibility to help others maintain those values.
Narcissism still hurts others, no matter how normal the behavior seems. Hurting
others is still not acceptable. Speak up against abuse and lying and cheating
and compromised values.

But there’s more. We can smile
more and be more kind. A thousand little acts of kindness to show the world
that narcissism does not rule everyone. Affirm relationships. Tell people that
you value them and are grateful. For so many, the characteristics of narcissism
have been adopted because they are afraid or have been made to feel unimportant.
Thank people. See people, especially those who have been invisible in the past.
Do things narcissists wouldn’t think about doing, especially for the sake of
others.”